NORRISTOWN ­­— Waving signs and flags at passing motorists on Main Street, a group of gun-rights advocates rallied in front of the Montgomery County Courthouse Saturday afternoon.

The demonstration, organized by a small, grassroots group calling itself Citizens for Liberty, was one of many around the country staged in observance of the first-ever Gun Appreciation Day, primarily in state capitals, according to the Associated Press.

Approximately 30 demonstrators lined the sidewalk in front of the courthouse, holding signs extolling the rights of citizens to bear arms and the advantages of gun ownership.

“A gun in the hand is better than a cop on the phone,” read one sign.

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“Uphold the Constitution,” read another.

The Stars and Stripes waved by the demonstrators alternated with the historic yellow flag from the Colonial era that says “Don’t Tread on Me.”

A common belief among the demonstrators appeared to be that the purpose of the Second Amendment is to allow citizens to arm themselves against the tyranny of the federal government.

“People are forgetting the point,” Steve Pietrowski of Audubon, a founder of Citizens for Liberty, told the crowd, reading from a self-published pamphlet. “Guns in the hands of American citizens are not for shooting home burglars, not for hunting, and not for target practice. They are to serve as a psychological deterrent to our own government to not engage in sweeping cultural changes that are against the will of the people.”

The demonstration was not planned specifically in reaction to the shooting in Newtown, Conn., or to President Obama’s recommendations for curbing gun violence, Pietrowksi said, although some of the signs held by demonstrators had a distinctly anti-Obama cast.

Jackie Pietrowski, also of Audubon, Steve’s sister-in-law and a cofounder of Citizens for Liberty, said she supported background checks for gun buyers, but, she added, none of Obama’s proposals would have prevented the tragedy in Newtown.

“It hurts,” she said of the Newtown shooting. “I have a 4-year-old that goes to school ... but President Obama’s proposals wouldn’t have stopped it.”

In any event, she added, government restrictions on gun ownership have less to do with preventing violence than with controlling the lives of law-abiding citizens.